//------------------------------// // Getting to know the new old crew // Story: CCC-Back Home Again // by Fresnor //------------------------------// “This is impossible, you’re not possible, how can you be me?! First this… thing just pops up out of my forehead, then I get chased by impossibly living shadows all around town, and now the impossibility that is you and a talking fox creature just appear out of nowhere?!” I sit there and watch as this world’s Twilight paces back in forth in front of us and glance over at Twilight in amusement. She looks as shocked as the other Twilight at meeting herself, though she seems to be taking it a bit better thanks to her six hundred more years of experience. Why would you think that this is all impossible? It’s obviously possible as it’s happening right now don’t you think?” She leans down towards me and asks in a quitter voice. ”Please tell me I wasn’t like this all those years ago?” I just raise an eyebrow at her in answer, causing her to bring a hand up to her face. “No, just because it’s happening does not mean it’s possible and I’m going to prove it to you!” With that Twilight grabs Twilight be the hand and drags her over to a set of boards on the other side of the room. Once there she starts writing down various formulas on the board while explaining it all to Twilight. Soon enough Twilight started shaking her own head and began writing her own formulas on another nearby board. I just shake my head as the two start really getting into trying to prove the other one wrong. I can’t say I’m surprised at this turn of events. It isn’t often that Twilight could do something like this as there were few on her level for intelligence as well as obsessiveness. I wonder how long it’ll take for the younger one to give up due to the century’s difference between them. Well I guess that’s one way to… to… oh my… that feels so… I completely lost my train of thought when I felt someone scratching behind my ears. I rolled over onto my side and leaned into the feeling to try to increase the pressure a bit more. “Fluttershy! What are you doing? Don’t you know how dangerous that thing could be?” I probably would have said something snarky at Rainbow Dash, but I was too busy enjoying the feelings being granted by what I now knew as Fluttershy’s fingers. Luckily I didn’t have to do anything as one of the others stepped up. “Now calm down Sugarcube, you saw it come in with Twilight and Sunset and they haven’t let us down yet. Besides, it’s rather obvious that she is very different from those monsters roaming the streets the last few months.” I crack my eyes open a bit to see Rainbow Dash turn away in a grump at AJ’s words. I actually feel the need to speak up now though as this is the third time I have been referred to as an ‘it’ or ‘thing.’ “You know, I would appreciate it if you’d stop referring to me as an ‘it’ or ‘thing.’ My name is Flarenza and I am a female kitsune. I’ve been friends with Twilight long enough to know who all of you are, and could you please go back to the scratching Fluttershy?” I whine the last part as Fluttershy had stopped when I began speaking, but continued once again at my insistence. The others were silent, except for Sunset who I heard some chuckling from, and I wondered if they only now noticed that I could talk even though I had done so before. I closed my eyes for a moment to enjoy the feeling just to open them again to be greeted with a pair of blue eyes to which I sigh. “Yes Pinkie Pie?” I was actually wondering when this would happen, considering the track record of the one I knew. She further cemented that image when she opened her mouth to speak. “Wowie you really can talk. I always wondered what sound a fox makes but now I can just ask you so what does the fox say, huh huh huh?” I don’t even bother trying to figure out what she is going on about as Sunset pulls her away. “Pinkie, there will be time for that later. There are more important things to worry about now that Twilight is finally here to help us. Of course now we have to somehow drag her away from herself so that we can find out what is going on and how to stop it.” I notice the others nodding to her and I sigh as I probably should stop them before they interrupt Twilight’s fun. I shake my head to ward off the hypnotic fingers and sigh. “I have more knowledge about what those things are than Twilight since I’ve had to fight them once already. The only reason I asked her to come with me here was because she knew more about this world and I didn’t quite expect so little time to have passed since she was last here. As for a plan all I have right now is to find where those things are coming from and make sure no more can come through.” I soon have five pairs of eyes, six if the “eep” from Fluttershy meant anything, on me looking as if they were unsure of my words. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that you’ve seen these things before. What are they and how did you stop them? For that matter who exactly are you? I remember your name in a couple of letters from Twilight, but I always thought you were just another pony she knew.” I look at Sunset Shimmer before turning to the others to see a look of hope from them. Unfortunately I can’t give them as much as I would like. “We never did stop them; we could only run away from them. Of the millions that were a part of the kingdom, only a couple thousand were able to escape through the portal to the world where Equestria lies. Unfortunately the day of our escape claimed the lives of not only our rulers, but also their only son. It’s been over a year since then but I still miss my husband and step-mother.” The mood of the others immediately drops as I say this and I was about to continue until Rarity looks up with her eyes wide. “Wait, are you saying that you actually married a prince of that kingdom? Wouldn’t that make you a…?” I just roll my eyes at the pale unicorn biped before I continue. “I should have expected that you would be the one focused on the fact that I’m technically a princess because of my marriage.” I pause a moment as she lets out a little squeal of excitement. “But further explanations about that can wait. What I was about to say though was that I do have a way to destroy those things, but I need to find the portal to figure out how to close it.” I look over at the pair of Twilights to make sure that they are still occupied. “Those shadow creatures seem to be some kind of undead creature that combines features of a couple other kinds. They are immune to physical damage while their attacks can infect their targets and eventually turn them into more of themselves. But like all undead they are vulnerable to magic, especially kinds of a more positive nature.” I was about to continue but they all got really silent for some reason and I noticed them all staring to something to my side. Looking up I saw that they were staring at Fluttershy who had shrunk down on herself and had a hand brought up to her face under her hair. As she was seated I was able to reach her face with a tail to brush her hair out of the way to reveal three long scratches across her eye. Her eye was also missing from its socket causing me to wince. Switching to my magical senses I find that there are still traces of the shadow being in her wound, but interestingly enough they seemed to be inert for now. “Strange; I do detect traces of the creatures, yet it’s not reacting like I would have expected. In fact I have yet to see the creatures acting like they normally do.” Just as a precaution I sweep the rest of the room for other traces in case there were other injuries and am surprised by what I find. I look over at the rainbow haired female with a raised eyebrow. “So how about your own injury, Rainbow Dash? How bad is it that you have yet to stop using your wings to keep your leg off the ground?” Four and a half pairs of eyes dart over towards her as she looks a bit sheepish while Applejack spoke up. “Now dang it Rainbow, why didn’t you tell us those things got you as well? I knew something was off about you when you carried the Sonata gal in here.” That name sounded familiar for some reason and I was reminded why when Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Well excuse me for having more important things to do at the time. It’s not like she had just watched her two pals Adagio and Aria get torn apart right in front of her after they threw her up to me. It’s not like anyone else was in a rush to get her off of me what with how bad she was crying. Besides I’ve had worse injuries while I was practicing with these babies.” She gestures to her wings and I roll my eyes, while also making a note to check on this Sonata later, before reaching out with my magic to drag the cyan flyer over to me. “Right, you are all big and tough but right now let me get a good look at your wound so I can fix it.” They all look at me in surprise though she still rolls her leggings up enough to reveal a set of deep scratches from her foot to about halfway up her leg. I ignored them as AJ slapped her on the back of her head and started arguing and focused on the two injuries. Seeing as they were mostly flesh wound it didn’t take me long to clear out the wounds and seal the relatively well considering how little knowledge I have of their biology. Sunset watched me with an odd look on her face and spoke up once I finished. “It may have been a while since I’ve been able to use my magic but that looks nothing like any healing spell I’ve ever heard of before. It doesn’t even feel like one either as you weren’t pouring any magic into the wounds which is how they usually work.” I answer her in a distracted fashion as I am busy digging through my bags for something. “It’s a variant on a spell necromancers use for sculpting the flesh of zombies or flesh golems. I’ve actually done a lot of work researching many of the darker branches of magic and looked into ways they can be used for good purposes.” I glance over to see a look of horror on her face but I ignored it in favor of casting a critical eye over the large gem I pulled out. “Oh don’t give me that look; all of my research has been gone over by all five princesses of Equestria. What they deem safe we distribute to the appropriate specialists to be used how they should be, with strict control of course. Some of the things I’ve found are pretty hard to duplicate without using some of the more maligned branches of magic. Also I’m sorry if this hurts Fluttershy but it’ll be just for a moment.” She lets out a small squeak as I lightly drag a blade of magic over one of her fingers to draw a little blood before sealing the wound up again. The group just stares in shock at when I did and watch as I surround the gem with the blood and cast the appropriate spells. I’ve had plenty of practice with the spell so it only took me moments to complete it which was good as Sunset tried to stop me right as I finished. It was easy enough to fend off her weak spells as I brought the gem up to Fluttershy’s face and slipped it into her empty socket before she could react. “What do you think you are doing? Get that thing out of her right now before I…” I just roll my eyes at Sunset’s flailing, but it was Fluttershy that stopped her. “My eye, I can see out of it again.” Everyone turned to look at her in shock as she looked around in wonder with her new gem eye that was the same color as her real one.